"MOOO!"

A twenty something meter bull raged with crimson eyes at the sight of its beloved kin being slashed, smashed, and burned alive, the last memory it could afford to see before a white haired killer smashed down toward it, turning this pack leader into meat paste as easily as she did to the smaller beasts

​​

Scenes like this played out through the chaotic land, it wasn't merely bulls either as different types of packs, solitary beasts, and half sentient one's banded together into a horde to try and fight the few invaders claiming the land for the past few days, alas they were only sending themselves to death's door

"...They are monsters"

"Can't believe we're on the same side"

"I'm just glad we are, at least now we can fight back"

Three voices conversed while watching from the side, the first two belonging to Dag and Nee respectively, while the last came from a new member, it was the woman whom they recruited along with the parasite, now turned vampire

"Mother looks weaker than most of them, I can tell she's angry about that"

The woman commented, intelligent eyes catching onto the bullet like figure of Mia darting about with dissatisfaction all over her face, sneaking glances of her own toward the rest of the battlefield from time to time

"Well, at least Ika is weaker"

Nee tried to lighten up the mood but that didn't work well, it just meant she was the second weakest

"Who told the others to be so monstrous anyway?"

She continued with a pout, overlooking the rest of the small team who caused havoc like they were the disasters themselves

Aside from Ika who appeared to slice at beasts, leaving trails of fire in her wake, the rest never hid, taking everything thrown at them head on, especially Zero who was using her colossal strength to tear the beasts, strong and weak alike, into half with bare hands

"My Lord is most efficient and elegant"

"Yes, it appears the Lord is even dancing, without care at that"

An impressive spectacle, one that they could not be bored with as they watched knives flying across the ground and through the sky, precisely slicing necks, poking eyes, or slashing open vitals before they got ricocheted into somewhere else or back to his hand for another throw, thirty knives were being juggled in such manner at the same time

"That woman though, she's something else"

"Who is she exactly?"

The new woman question her senior, only to have the know it all shake her head

"I've no idea, never met or hear about her before"

In fact she did, Mia once told them of the redhead who accompanied her master at the beginning of his journey, even the hound as well, but Anput wasn't brought to tag along and Ellis was covered in armor from head to toe, wielding twin swords with deadly purple searing the blades, making it rather hard to link the one from the story with her

It was no doubt however that this woman was the focal point of the battle, where ever she walked everything within a fifteen meter radius would scream in pain, some beasts even falling to the ground and covering their eyes with the front limbs, hoping the two legged horror would pass by without noticing them, especially since she did indeed ignore the ones who did this, only they didn't seem to move long after she passed them…

"This energy emitting from her body is killing everything around, her swords can slice open just about anything, and no energy or melee attack could hurt her, granted they land in the first place"

"That's not energy"

Nee corrected the new sister

"It feels much too different from energy, it feels like a manifestation of something...like a manifestation of her will? Maybe I'm wrong"

"Hmm"

The two looked on, regardless of their thoughts all they could do was wait until this last battle was finished before they could report what their scouting brought

A couple of hours later the battlefield turned quiet with Ika slicing the neck of the last surviving giant rabbit, marking the end of their relentless slaughter

"Everyone okay?"

""Yes Master""

""Yes My Lord""

The four women answered in unison

"Good, let's get rid of witnesses then"

He pointed them to where he felt prying eyes, try as they may the four couldn't prevent humans from witnessing massive battles of this scale, the only thing one could do was remove all those who had the guts to take a peek, a simple matter with his perception of gazes

A quick chase later they rounded and killed the poor sods who were only trying to gather information for the sake of their camp's safety

"Is that everyone Master?"

"Should be, either way I am in my shadow persona Ellis is covered, so long as no one reports of your existence until it reaches Sofia's ears things shouldn't cause too much trouble"

Calling thralls he had them deliver the bodies to Anput as quickly as possible, these would make quite the good undead assassin, as for making them scouts? Well they weren't exactly intelligent enough for communication after dying, not most of them at least

"My Lord, we are back!"

"My Lord, it is a pleasure to meet you"

Nee and the new woman greeted, Dag no longer tagging along, not the most comfortable in the presence of this merciless man

"Finding your wish fulfilled?"

He asked the new woman directly, much to her and everyone else's confusion

"You'd wanted to run from that death trap no? How is it, your new home"

".... It's much to my liking my Lord"

She guessed from this he'd been watching that night, was that why she was recruited? Because she was the only one seeking change? Or was there more to it, for everyone here had their own strengths, she on the other hand was as plain as plain could be

'I'd blend into the crowd like a nobody, just what made him pick me?'

Wanting to ask but afraid to, such was her state

Alas the opportunity passed by her as he nodded and requested the confirmation report on the mist

"It's as they say, there is mist all over the human borders, strange creatures roaming within, I also saw humans trying to kill them but to no avail, some even got killed instead"

"Some?"

"Yes my Lord, it doesn't seem like these things are willing to leave the mist"

"Yet, they won't leave it just yet, a tiger wouldn't show its fangs before cornering the prey, they must be waiting to engulf our land with mist so by the time humans realize how hopeless it is they would have no escape, only traversing the Haunting Mist which is death in itself"

"Should we evacuate?"

The new woman asked

"Evacuate what? The entire human race? Where to would you exactly like to take them…?"

He couldn't finish as he didn't know her name yet

"Sa, I've been renamed Sa my Lord"

YuJu couldn't help but blink hearing the name, sending Mia a weird glance, at first he thought it might be coincidence but was she really following a certain numerical order to name them?

He didn't comment on the matter however, in fact it was much easier to remember them this way, at least she didn't have to go through scores of ancient scripts to find a suitable name, unlike a certain someone….

"About the evacuating matter, I have no idea where to do so my Lord, but I'd hoped you would"

She didn't act stubborn in trying to save everyone, merely stating an option she found viable, if this was Ellis or Dag suggesting the matter then perhaps they'd be gazing with determined eyes, though they knew nothing just like her

'She's exactly as I presumed she would be'

Since her personality seemed to fit his needs he answered her question, shedding more light on the state of this world

"First, to gather swarms of humans in this age and time is impossible, easy as it is to accomplish that in these parts it cant be replicated everywhere, reason being the dangers filling the land, unlike ours which get cleared regularly by us"

That made sense, but couldn't they help with that?

"Your thinking why we can't just fetch them over no?"

Its as if he read their minds

"Tell me, do you think gathering almost a million humans is faster than the mist forming? No, even if we went as far as to sacrifice half, or two thirds of humanity, we'd still have barely any time"

"..."

She wasn't speechless by the revelation of this matter's difficulty, naturally she knew it would be very hard, instead she was shocked by another matter

"Master…."

Ellis suddenly spoke with a shaky voice, switching his attention to her

"Are there really, a million...only a million left of us…"

Just asking the question seemed ridiculous, that couldn't be right? There were over seven billion people alive before the apocalypse! That was only seven thousandths left of an entire race!!

"Not a million"

There was hope?

"I rounded it up"

…...